Crane Hawk vs Slate-colored Hawk

We saw a lot of raptors along the Amazon and its tributaries, which should not have been surprising, but, somehow, was. When selecting this morning’s pic of the hawk in the top frames, I thought, “Oh I have photos of this hawk from later in the trip.” but when I looked up the bird in Birds of Peru, and checked my later pics, I realized that they were two different species. The top frames are the Crane Hawk, and the bottom frames are the Slate-colored Hawk. The field guide says the Crane Hawk is “slender” and the Slate-colored is “chunky” but from the angles here that is certainly not an easy distinction. There are also subtle differences in the tail bands, and tail length…but the main difference is, of course, the cere…gray in the Crane Hawk, and orange in the Slate-colored. Both hawks are listed as wide-spread but uncommon in the Amazon basin. I see no reason really, why there should be two plain gray hawks with red-orange legs along the same stretch of Amazon River, unless to deliberately confuse birders, but then it was not my decision to make 🙂

Sony Rx10iii at 600mm equivalent. Program mode. Processed in Polarr and assembled in Frame Magic on my iPad Pro.